ALBANY – The latest dispute over capital defense legal fees comes to the Court of Appeals this week, when Governor Pataki attempts to topple a ruling that ordered the state to pay lawyers and paralegals who assist assigned counsel in death cases.
Mahoney v. Pataki, 42, is among a plethora of capital punishment-related cases to come before the Court in recent years, and is one of particular significance when the issue of indigent defense is so prominent. It involves three upstate lawyers and requires the Court to take on the peculiar task of deciding whether its own order on capital counsel compensation violates the Judiciary Law. The central issue is the breadth of the Court’s authority in setting assigned counsel rates in death cases.
